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Looker

Embed Reference - Java Backend

This application is the backend / server component supporting the reference implementation library of examples for building Embedded Looker Solutions.

This JavaScript application uses the Looker API to provide embed urls to the user-facing React application.

There is a Node backend example of this application as well.

About Embedding Looker

Embedding Looker involves displaying and interacting with Looker content from an outside source, such as the users website or in a third party SAS solution from another vendor. This offers a way to seemlessly leverage the power of Looker to enhance a third party product and / or offer a secure method for an outside user to interact with the data provided.

For more please see the documentation for the Front End component.

Prerequisites

There are two methods of running this application; locally or on GCP AppEngine.

Installation (local)

  1. Clone or download a copy of this template to your development machine.

  2. Navigate (cd) to the template directory on your system.

  3. Set the environmental variables.

    • This is set with the Property File application.yml located in ./main/resources. There is a sample file application-example.yml with instructions in the same location. Instead of adding variables to the file, these variables may be set as environment variables.

  4. From the project directory (that contains the pom.xml file), set up a Maven Wrapper for the project. https://maven.apache.org/wrapper/

    • mvn -N wrapper:wrapper

  5. Run the project.

    • ./mvnw spring-boot:run

  6. The server should be up and running locally! It can be tested by navigating to localhost:3000/api/me (or whichever server port is set as an environmental variable in application.yml).

Google AppEngine Installation (optional)

Google AppEngine offers a fully managed and highly scalable cloud based host for both the backend and frontend processes when moving beyound local testing. Free credits are offered for new accounts and a number of free hours are offered to current customers.

To get started:

  • Install Google’s Cloud SDK including gcloud (the primary CLI used to manage Google Cloud resources link)

  • Initialize gcloud and choose / create a Google Cloud project (link)

    gcloud init

    A Note re: Security

    Before deploying the code to AppEngine it is advised to consider the potential issues of publishing to a public endpoint. Unless this involves a test instance of Looker with non-sensitive data, we will need to protect the endpoint from unauthorized use.

    One option is to configure the Firewall rules as to only allow access from your IP address.

    • To do this:
      • Make sure the project is selected in the AppEngine Dashboard.
      • Select Firewall rules from the left navigation menu.
      • Select the default rule, click edit, and select Deny for range * and then Save.
      • The click Create Rule on the top navigation menu.
      • Enter 10 for Priority, select Allow, and enter your IP address in the IP Range box. Click Save.

  • Update the api/src/main/resources/application.yml file, and create a Maven Wrapper for the project, the same way as described in the local installation instructions.

  • Install dependencies and create a new build to deploy to App Engine:

    yarn install
yarn run build

  • In api/src/main/resources/application.yml update the server port to 8080:

    server:
  port: 8080

  • Update pom.xml to include a Maven Google Cloud plugin that simplifies the deployment process.

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" ...>
 ...
 <build>
    <plugins>
       ...
       <plugin>
       <groupId>com.google.cloud.tools</groupId>
       <artifactId>appengine-maven-plugin</artifactId>
       <version>2.2.0</version>
       <configuration>
          <version>1</version>
          <projectId>GCLOUD_CONFIG</projectId>
       </configuration>
       </plugin>
    </plugins>
 </build>
 ...
 </project>

  • From the root Backend-Java directory, deploy the Spring Boot application too App Engine as an API service:

    ./mvnw -DskipTests package appengine:deploy

  • Note the target url. When deploy completes, test by pointing browser to:

    {target-url}/api/me

  • Now we will need to return and modify the client .env file with the {target-url} created for the API.

    • Update: API_HOST to point to the target-url returned during the API Deploy above

    • Update: PBL_CLIENT_PORT to 80

  • Upload the client code/service with:

    gcloud app deploy client.yaml dispatch.yaml

Additional resources:

Looker API & Embedded Ref